


the fire kids

by Marshmellow (orphan_account)



Series: friends & neighbors [4]
Category: Band of Brothers, Generation Kill, The Pacific (TV)
Genre: M/M, angst again bc i cant write shit, firefighting!!!, focus on some friendship!!!!, pairings are mostly bg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-26
Updated: 2015-02-26
Packaged: 2018-03-15 09:20:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3441821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Marshmellow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Another trip to the hospital and Babe loses his mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the fire kids

**Author's Note:**

> I shouldn't write things in the hospital anymore because I don't know how they fucking work. I tried to research as much as I could for the fire station. I did my best, by golly.
> 
> I tried out a new writing style (present tense) so hopefully it's not complete crap.

Bill Guarnere fucking loves his job. Seriously, it’s a fucking great job. Yeah, he has a degree in business, but any thought of working a day job stuck in a fucking cubicle was blown away once he realized how sick fire service is.

The story behind his joining is pretty damn tragic, but he doesn’t like to talk about it. Babe and Bill’s old friend Julian was killed in a housefire the summer before their senior year at West Virginia University. It’s what made Bill want to at least volunteer, but then he read into actually doing it as a career and, shit. He decided he’d give it a shot after college. If he ended up not liking it, he always had his degree.

The plan was to move back to Philly to be a firefighter when he graduated, but after Babe told him he was staying in West Virginia, he knew there was no fucking way. He got hired by Charleston FD and told Babe no way in hell they were not gonna live together. A few months after training, he grew close to Joe Toye and convinced him to move out of his shitty apartment and into their guest room. For all the shit he went through to get here, Bill is pretty content with his life situation.

His favorite part of being at the station, besides the part where he gets to fight fires, is the foosball table. When days or nights are slow and there’s nothing to do, the guys and gals of FDC Station 2 like to go apeshit with it. Toye and Bill spend hours playing that thing, either casually catching up over a quick game or intensely trying to annihilate the other. Today is the second one. It’s about two in the morning, so they have about five hours left of their 24 hour shift, and the tensions are running high.

“I’m gonna shove your goalie so far up your ass-”

“You talk a big game, Bill, but who’s winning?”

“Fuck you!”

It doesn’t go much further than that when there’s the beautiful, horrible sound of the bell. Bill and Toye stop for a beat and then scramble to throw on their gear to beat each other to the truck.

Virginia is impatiently waiting at the wheel by the time they load in. Really, she was barely five seconds quicker, but she loves being smug. They’d get back at her later. Toye and Bill quickly jump on the back while Dike yells at them to “move their fucking asses a little quicker next time”. As if he’s the real poster boy for a perfect firefighter. Bill’s pretty sure he’s been promoted beyond his ability, but that ain’t his decision.

The fire is on the first floor. A mother and her infant are crying on the lawn, yelling out for her daughter, but Bill gears up and follows Dike to the door while Toye and Virginia prepare the hose. There’s still someone inside; there’s no time for comfort. It’s been a year since he started, but it still pains him to ignore victims waiting on the street. He lets Toye take care of it this time.

“Check the second floor!” Dike yells. “I need to locate the origin of the fire!”

Bill nods once and takes off for the stairs. The smoke is thick, but he’s used to it by now. No one upstairs besides a few melting plastic dolls, and ain’t that a fuckin’ creepy sight.

When he goes to check in with Dike, he finds him standing completely at the kitchen door.

“What the fuck are you doing?!” Bill shouts. There’s a thick cloud of smoke pouring from the kitchen, and Dike is standing still. Bill runs to the door and, well, there’s the origin of the fire. Bill almost turns to ask Dike to get the fucking hose, or at least try and extinguish this shit, the goddamn idiot, when he sees exactly what made Dike freeze.

There’s a girl hiding under the table, as far away from the fire as she can be. She’s holding onto a doll and crying as the flames only get closer. Bill immediately steps into action. The fire is pissed the fuck off, so it’s difficult to extinguish any of it enough for a clear path, but fuck that when there’s a kid trapped in the corner.

“Mommy!” She cries through her collar, which was pulled over her nose. Smart kid, Bill thinks. “I’m scared!”

“I’m comin’!” Bill hopes he’s not lying. “Toye,” he says into the comm. “You better have that hose ready. This son of a bitch isn’t gonna be beat by the extinguishers.” He can’t see well through the smoke, but he finally gets a clear path to the table. He carefully maneuvers the girl out from under the table and tells her to hold on tight.

He’s about to finally cross the threshold when a support beam from the exposed kitchen ceiling begins to crack. It crashes on his head as he’s stepping forward. He thinks, _God I hope the ambulance comes fucking soon_. Then all he hears is the girl screaming out as he falls.

 

Toye is about to murder his higher-ups. Whoever the fuck decided to hire Dike in the first place needs to get a good hit in the face, no joke.

When Toye and Virginia hear Bill yelling at Dike over the comm, they know one of them needs to step in. Toye gives her a nod and she runs in just as they hear a horrific scream. The mother sitting on her lawn begins to sob.

“That’s my little girl!” She cries into Toye’s uniform just as the ambulance pulls up. “Oh god, no…”

The thing with most fires was that there’s usually no one to blame. Most of the time, it’s all an accident. So when there’s a crying woman on the lawn, you can’t comfort her with promises of justice. There’s no one person to blame. All Toye can do is hope they walk out of that building with a living girl.

When Virginia walks out with a small girl on her back, he breathes a sigh of relief and lets the paramedics take care of the family while they get this fire under control.

“We’re going to have to make this a rescue mission.” Virginia says as he’s preparing to charge in with the hose. He doesn’t have time to ask questions. He can’t ask questions when he sees Bill trapped under a beam, unconscious. He can’t ask why Dike is cowering in the corner. He can’t ask why this fire is the one that broke Dike’s brain.

They pull Bill out, a job barely doable for two people, but Dike isn’t moving. The fire had just begun to graze Bill’s suit when they pulled him out, so Toye can tell he’s going to be burned. There’s a gash on the back of Bill’s head. By the time they get the fire under control, Toye feels like ripping Dike’s balls off and feeding them to him one by one through his fucking nose. He can tell Virginia feels the same.

“Let’s get him out of here. We can get Dike later.” Virginia says and hooks her arms around Bill’s underarms. Toye takes his legs. How they manage to get him out of there with all their gear and his on, Toye can’t say, but he guesses something overcomes you when your best friend is lying unconscious in a burning house.

He barely remembers getting Dike out of the house before the kitchen ceiling collapses. He clearly remembers watching Bill get put into an ambulance, grateful that Brad was in one of the ambulances that arrived. They worked with Brad on multiple fires and car accidents, and they all agreed he was the most collected paramedic they’d gotten the pleasure to work with. Toye doesn’t trust too many people with the lives of his close friends, but Brad was definitely on the top of his list.

Dike is pathetically slumped against the tire of the firetruck.The only reason Toye doesn’t punch Dike right the fuck there is because he likes his fucking job. He sees the little girl holding an oxygen mask over her face with her mother crying at her side. He pushes away his anger as far as he can and goes back to doing something Dike failed at: his fucking job.

 

_Step by step  
_ _Ooh baby  
_ _I’m gonna get to you gi-_

Babe is barely awake when he picks up the phone, he hadn’t even looked at the number, but he jolts to a sitting position as soon as they say who they are.

All they tell Babe is that Bill is in the hospital. He shouts for five minutes before realizing that he’s not going to get any answers yelling through a phone. He says he’ll be right there and hangs up the phone. The apartment is empty, something that suffocates Babe something fierce. He pulls on a sweater and runs to the third floor, almost tripping and sending himself to the hospital. Of course the one day his car is in the shop, there’s a fucking emergency. He thanked his lucky stars that he had the best friends in the fucking world.

He only feels slightly guilty for waking up Ron and Lip. Well, he feels bad for waking up Lip. He’s more hoping that Ron won’t answer the door. He breathes a sigh of relief when a ruffled looking Lipton opens the door.

“Listen, I really, really, really need a ride to the hospital. St. Francis. Like, now.” Babe breathes heavily. “Please, Lip.”

Lip nods and grabs his keys, writing a quick note on his and Ron’s whiteboard to say where they were going. Babe would’ve questioned the need to do such a thing in a clear emergency, but then he remembered Ron is a fucking weirdo and mentally shrugs that shit off.

They’re halfway there and Babe has chewed all his right hand fingernails to nubs when Lip finally turns to ask him why exactly they were going to the hospital.

“Oh, shit, right, I didn’t tell you...fuck, it-it’s Bill.” Saying it outloud made it real. Babe looks out at the nonexistent 3 AM traffic and tries not to cry. “They didn’t say what exactly, but I’ve got a feeling it’s a fire. He was on duty today.”

Lip just nods. Babe is grateful for him, he really is.

Babe forgets that Gene was working graveyard tonight until they run into him carrying an armful of gauze. It says something about the severity of the situation that Babe barely looks twice and heads straight for the receptionist while Lip exchanges a few words with Gene.

“William Guarnere.” He says. “Where is he?” The receptionist gapes for a minute. “ _Where is he?_ ”

Babe is not an angry person by nature, but when you fuck with his brothers, the rage comes out. He already lost one friend to a fire, he doesn’t want to lose another. Unable to control the frustration that catches in his stomach, Babe slams his hands furiously on the table. The receptionist jumps and holds his clipboard to his chest.

“ _Where the fuck is William Guarnere?_ ” Babe is sure he looks like an angry tomato, so he’s actually surprised when the guy looks scared. He must be new to this. Most hospital receptionists are used to angry and impatient families.

“Hold on one second.” The kid says. He looks terrified to speak any more, but Guarnere is a weird name, and he’d rather not play guessing games while there’s a very angry man looming over his shoulder. “Could you please spell that for me?”

Through gritted teeth, Babe says, “G. U. A. R. N. E. R. E. Guarnere.” He knows he shouldn’t be taking out his frustration and worry on this guy, but he can’t help it. This is family. His family is hurt.

“He’s in the ICU right now.”

“God...What room?”

“I’m sorry, but you can’t go in yet.”

“Why the fuck not?” Babe tries not to scream. “That’s my fucking best friend in there! I’m his fucking emergency contact, why else would I fucking be here? Who the fuckin’ hell calls someone and says their best friend is in the hospital, but when he gets here he’s off limits? What the fucking hell?” Babe is nearly crying at this point. God, he’s a mess. It’s just that...Julian and Bill were always the heroes. Julian was planning on doing police work; Bill is a fucking firefighter. They were the good people. Babe always just sort of...existed with them. Even Babe’s parents and sisters are prouder of Bill, not that Babe can blame them. Why was it good people like Bill got the shaft?

“I’m sorry-”

“What is his fucking room number?!” Babe pounds the table.

“Edward.” He hears behind him. Gene’s standing there in his street clothes, looking freshly showered, sad, and pale. Babe guesses they heard about Bill and let Gene off. Lord knows how Babe would be if he had to work while knowing one of his friends was in the ICU.

Babe’s angry. Babe’s furious. And now Gene’s standing there, looking sad and looking angry, and Babe doesn’t want to deal with it.

“Don’t fucking call me that.” Babe says. Gene cautiously moves toward him and grabs him by the shoulders. Lipton is making phone calls down the hall. It smells like rubbing alcohol and latex. It’s three fifteen in the morning. Babe’s head hurts, but his heart hurts more.

“Please don’t do-”

“Get the fuck off of me!” Babe slaps Gene’s hands away and backs up. He turns to the

receptionist who is close to calling for security. Gene shakes his head and silently lets him know he’s got it covered. “What room is he in? God, you’ve gotta tell me, you don’t understand…” Babe’s pleading, but his voice is aggressive. Even Gene is a little scared, but he reminds himself to keep a level head.

“If you keep this up, he’ll never tell you. You need to calm down-”

“Calm down? Do you know what’s going on right now? That’s fucking Bill in there! Am I the only one here with a fuckin’ heart? God, you’re a fuckin’ nurse!” Babe pulls at his hair. In any other situation, Gene could calm him down. Right now, this is uncharted territory. Bill had never been this badly injured, and they all knew how hard it was for Babe after Julian died. Losing Bill would be doubly painful.

Gene steps forward and tries to calm Babe with touch again. He presses his hands gently to his neck. “That has nothing to do with-”

Babe shoves his arms violently away. “If you fuckin’ touch me one more time, I’m gonna fuckin’ kill you.”

Gene is slightly phased by this, but not truly. He’d seen what tragedy can do to people. There’s no doubt Babe is feeling something incomprehensible.

“I’ll just go fucking find out for myself then.” Babe tries to move past Gene again, but he catches him from behind before he can make it too far down the hall. There’s a struggle as Babe tries to get away, but Gene wraps his arms around Babe’s chest in a vice grip and refuses to let go, even when Babe starts clawing at him. At first, it’s in anger. It slowly dissolves into pain.

“Let me go!” Babe sobs. Gene’s heart breaks, but he doesn’t acknowledge it. “Let me see him! He’s all I got, Gene! He’s all I got!” Babe cries and cries and Gene says nothing, just holds him steady until he loses all his energy and slides to the ground, taking Gene with him. “I gotta see him, fuck, I can’t lose another one, Gene…”

And, fuck, times like these make Gene wish he could touch his forehead to Babe’s and steal his pain. No one deserves this, least of all Babe.

“I know, Babe. I’ve got you.”

 

A tall man who introduces himself as Brad Colbert appears half an hour later. At this point, Babe is curled up in a chair in the corner, as far away from Gene as he can get. Lipton is sitting next to him and carefully comforting him. Gene’s never felt so useless in his life.

After Gene half carried Babe to sit down, he tried his best to comfort him. He brought him a bar of chocolate and a blanket from the nurse station, but Babe had told him to just get away. Lipton said not to take it personally, and Gene nodded and took a seat on the other end of the waiting room.

Then Brad walks in, says he’s a paramedic friend of Bill’s that brought him in, and that he was sent by Toye to check up on his status once his shift was over. Well, his shift is over, so here he is. Babe perks up at that. Gene tries to remember the severe situation they’re in. He shouldn’t be jealous of this tall, beautiful man who offers information about Bill’s health. But he’s making Babe calm down and listen. Gene feels a little more useless.

“I can’t say anything about his current condition, but I can say he had a moderate to severe head injury and a small number of second degree burns on his legs. Virginia tells me he fell forward after getting hit on the back of the head, so thankfully the girl he was carrying was able to get away without serious injury. If he’d fallen back, they both could have suffered fourth degree burns.” Brad says. Babe is hanging on to his every word, gripping Lipton’s arm.

“Jesus Christ, of course he was saving a fucking little girl.” Babe laughs. “That’s our Bill.”

Brad nods. Gene gets the impression that listing off Bill’s injuries was practically a lecture from this guy. He seems steady, silent, stoic. Gene picks at a loose thread on his sleeve.

“Dick is bringing a couple guys up. I told him that we weren’t allowed in, so waking up all the troops is pointless.” Lipton says. “They should be here soon.”

It’s too silent after that. Gene feels like he should go home, but he can’t make himself walk out the door. Even with Lip and Brad here, Gene feels like he’d be leaving Babe alone. It’s illogical, but he stays.

“Carwood, next time you leave a note on the door, wanna make it a little less ambiguous?” Lip turns to face Ron, who had just entered the waiting room with Lew and Dick. Lip smiles, looking slightly guilty as he realizes putting ‘going to hospital’ probably wasn’t his smartest idea. He’d meant to add detail, but it was a dire situation.

“Sorry. Next time we have a friend in the ICU, I will try to be more detailed when leaving you a note.” The dry tone in which is says this makes even Babe laugh. Gene notices that Ron looks very, very slightly shaken up. No one else would notice, but his eyes looked wild in a way that Gene has seen in many relatives of patients before. He doesn’t mention it.

“Who’s the blondie?” Lew says before plopping down into a seat. Dick sits down a little more gracefully next to him.

“Brad Colbert. Paramedic.” Brad says. He doesn’t reach out to shake anyone’s hand. Ron looks like he just formed a new crush.

“I’m Lewis, this is Dick and Ron. I’m guessing you already met Babe and Lipton?”

Brad nods.

“Hey, aren’t you a friend of Ray’s? He said he had a norse god for a best friend, but we didn’t believe him.”

“Unfortunately.” Brad gives out a long suffering sigh. “I roomed with him in college and I couldn’t shake him off after graduation. He followed me to Charleston, but I drew the line at living in the same building as him.”

“Sounds like Ray.”

Gene ignores the fact that none of them have noticed he’s there. He’s getting used to it when unfortunately, Nix breaks the peace.

“Gene! What are you doing all the way over there?” He slouches into Dick’s space. “Come join the Guarnere Support Squad. We could use a nurse.”

Gene has absolutely no idea what to say. He carefully avoids looking at Babe. “Actually, I’ve, uh, got to use the restroom. Excuse me.”

He stands up and pretends he’s not running away.

 

Dr. Fick enters the waiting room at about four thirty. Babe is still slumped in the corner, Lew has fallen asleep on Dick, and Ron is considering proposing marriage to Brad. Gene is nowhere to be found.

“William Guarnere?” Dr. Fick asks needlessly. There’s only one group in the waiting room. Babe scrambles to stand up.

“That’s us.”

Dr. Fick looks exhausted. Babe wants to hug him. “I take it you’re Edward Heffron?” He asks. Babe nods. “William will pull through. He managed to get off with a moderate head injury and superficial second degree burns. He’ll be good as new in about three weeks. The ICU was a precaution, as his head injury looked a lot worse than it is. Once we move him to a regular room, you will be allowed to visit during typical visiting hours.”

“When will that be?”

“We will need to run a few tests when he wakes, make sure his head is in working order. I suggest you go home and get some rest.”

Babe considers arguing again, but Dr. Fick just looks so tired. He can tell they’ve done their best. He just nods.

“Yeah, okay. What time do visiting hours start?”

“Nine.”

“I’ll be here.”

Dr. Fick nods. “I’ll see you then, Heffron. Thanks for bringing him to me, Brad.” He nods at Brad, who absolutely does not react except there might be a touch of red on those cheeks. They all share amused looks.

“What was that about?” Ron asks.

Brad shrugs. “He has a way with burn victims.” He says no more after that. Babe can’t wait to ask Bill and Ray what the hell is up with their sasquatch of a friend.

 

Gene is still hiding in the locker room by five. Nate came in to shower and change and tell Gene that his friends had left, but Gene couldn’t face going home. Joe and Merriell would ask him all these questions and he didn’t want to answer them.

Eventually, he picks himself up off the bench and forces himself to go home.

Merriell is sitting on the couch with two full cups of tea in his hands. He has no idea how Merriell found out what the hell happened, but he doesn’t question it. He takes the mug of tea and they silently sip the morning away.

Gene doesn’t remember drifting off, but he’s woken by a knock at the door. Merriell is making breakfast, so Gene rouses himself and goes to answer the door. He’s absolutely not expecting Babe to be standing there.

“Gene, I’m so sorry.” Babe’s eyes are red rimmed and although he looks freshly showered, he looks a mess. Gene can’t blame him. He’s speechless. Babe surges forward and tucks his head into Gene’s neck, hugging him fiercely. “I didn’t mean any of it, you gotta believe me, I-”

“Babe.” Babe shut up.“Are you okay?”

That set him off crying. Gene holds him and tells him it’s all going to be okay. Truth is, Gene has never been more terrified in his life. He’s never felt more helpless.

“God, I just, I hope you know how much I love you…”

“I know, I know. I love you, too. Though, you should probably apologize to Hamm. You scared the livin’ shit out of the poor guy.”

“I can’t lose you, too.”

“You’re not losing anyone. We’re all right here.”

 

Toye and Virginia are the first ones to visit Bill. It would’ve been Babe, but Gene insisted that they go out for breakfast to calm down before going to the hospital.

Bill is still a little dizzy when they walk in.

“Did she get out alright?”

Virginia nods. “I made sure she got out.”

Bill feels a whole lot lighter after that. They tell him about how Dike won’t be returning to the department next time, and Bill honestly feels like crying tears of joy.

“Don’t tell Babe about Dike, okay? He’s too scrawny to fight anyone, even Dike.”

Virginia and Toye laugh at that; everyone in Charleston knows that Babe talks more shit than he can deliver.

After catching up for a few minutes, they both have to leave. Well, Bill insists that they leave. They both look like they’re about to fall over any second. He shoos them out just as Babe runs in.

“You’re lucky I don’t kill you right here.” Babe says as he drags a chair as close to Bill’s bed as possible.

“Eh, it’s just a scratch.”

Babe sobers. “Yeah, well, not everyone’s so lucky.”

They’re silent for a moment. Bill understands. They were there for each other that day, way back when Julian...well. He realizes that this must have been hell for Babe.

“Y’know, I lost one of my best friends. If another fire took you too I-”

“Babe. I’m fine.” Bill says softly. It’s uncomfortable with anyone else, to be so bare and vulnerable. But when you’ve been through as much shit as they have, there’s no walls. “Dr. Fick tells me you were a dramatic pissbaby in the waiting room, though. Wanna tell me more about that?”

Babe grins sheepishly. “I ain’t proud of that. Hey, Dr. Fick wasn’t even in the room when that happened!”

“Word travels fast. Apparently poor Gene was hiding away in the locker rooms.”

Babe blushes. “Aw, shit. I feel real bad. I apologized this morning.”

“Where is he, anyway?”

Babe looks out to the hall. Gene is patiently leaning against the wall, trying to give them as much privacy as you can get in a hospital. Bill shakes his head.

“You weren’t going to invite him in? Did your ma teach you no manners? Yo, Gene!” Bill shouts. “Get in here, you idiot!”

Gene spends the morning with them. He’s afraid to say much, so unless they talk directly to him, he’s pretty quiet. Dr. Fick returns around noon to check up on him. When he leaves, Babe turns immediately to Bill because there’s so much gossip to discuss it’s not even funny.

“So, the doctor who looks like he’s twelve…Gene, do you know him?”

“Sort of. I don’t work with him as much as I work with Renee.”

“Your friend, Brad.”

Bill groans. “Don’t get me started on those sons of bitches. I work with Brad sometimes, y’know, he’s a paramedic and all. I don’t come to the hospital all that often, but if I wanna check in with a patient whose house I worked on, it’s usually Dr. Fick takin’ care of them. I asked Brad about it one time, he grunted out some shit about Fick being the best in the business. I just can’t believe he finds time to fall in love with the guy over a burn victim’s gurney. Ray said it’s been like this since Fick started last year. Brad’s probably turned on by how smart he is. Only got works at St. Francis because they’re the only hospital in the area that would take a doctor so young.”

“Why is everyone in this town a gay idiot?”

Bill laughs.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Abrupt and awkward endings bc im a loser!! Xooxoxxox
> 
> if there's any particular people you want to see, hmu. I deleted my tumblr (again lmfaoaooaoo) but you can always contact me on skype at just.a.believer


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